Prisons in Cities : Inmate Li Guolin and Hiroshima Penitentiary by Seibun Satow

2012111

An inmate, Li Guolin who was convicted for attempted murder and other crimes, es caped from the Hiroshima prison on Jan. 11th, 2012.

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With the news about the jailbreak of a 23-year-sentenced inmate a controversy ov er the location of a jail has surged. Why is it located in a middle of a city?

People wonder why facilities like prisons with potentials of causing problems to a society can't be built secluded from other law abiding citizens' life.

However, a prison is considered as a correction facility and has to be built in a city where the prison industry for a city is more accessible for it to be read ily utilized.

The tasks in prisons are divided into 3 such as job training, house working and producing.

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Job training includes welding, electric construction, maintaining cars and 60 ot her varieties.

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House working includes cleaning and washing, namely tasks related to keep the fa cility. 80% of prisoners selects producing task.

If the prison is located in mountain or isolated island, it will be difficult to control the tasks. Shipping costs much time and money.

During the tasks in prison, prisoners are not allowed to talk.

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Without Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, New year's eve and day, they had to work 8 hours in a day under the Labor Standards Act.

"Supplying stable working force, costing less and labor-control free etc., there are many points good for companies in prison workforce. Therefore around 2,150 companies currently apply it as of April, 2010." (Ministry of Justice, A guide o f Prison-workforce)

Producing is applied by minor business. Bankruptcy, declining of orders or order ing abroad, which costs less make prison-workforce disengaged.

The work is mainly to produce industrial and craft products such as chests, tabl es, shogi (Japanese chess) boards, BBQ sets and aprons.

A bonus plan is provided for such production work.

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This production work bonus is ranked into 10 stages, from trainee workers to fir st-rank workers, based on task performance as a norm.

4000

530

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The average amount provided monthly is currently a little less than 4,000 yen, a nd about 30% of the inmates receive the average total amount of 50,000 yen upon their release from the prison, and those who receive less than 10,000 yen accoun ts for a little more than 20%.

However, due to the prolonged recession period and the deindustrialization, this production work has been reduced greatly.

1987

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2000

The revenue prisons earned from selling goods and generating from inmates' produ ction work has continually been reduced since the peak year of 1987 where the re venue was 15.7 billion Japanese yen, and in year 2000, it dropped below the leve l of 10 billion Japanese yen.

Additionally, with the movement of severe punishment, the number of inmates incr eased at one point.

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The production work has decreased, but the number of inmates has increased. A co st of at least 2.5 million Japanese yen is required for one inmate per year. Soc ial conditions are reflected even on the prisons.

This is more than a intuitive story that the worse the situation gets, the more criminals we get. Even Japan's industrial structures and population composition affect the situation within the prisons.

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In Crime Report 2004, the signification to this point is indicated as follows.

There are some who have no labor practice, some who are self-oriented and lack s pirits of cooperation, and some who do not have much patience among inmates. Thr ough prison work, these inmates are expected to gain the results of :

(1) learning regular labor practice and disciplined daily manners, 2

(2) maintaining their mental and physical health, 3

(3) developing adaptability to social lives through group work with others, 4

4) cultivating the will to work and professional knowledge and skills, 5

(5) cultivating the patience and concentration. As such, prison work holds an i mportant position as the country's prison administration.

In Japan, there is such a specification. Thus, the Pennsylvania system, reformin g inmates by applying self-contemplation method single-mindedly, is not taken.

This is the reason why prisons have to increase the number of workers for tasks which were before done by a smaller number of workers.

Also, they have increased the number of quality control tasks.

This is almost like an anti-capitalism, and might cause contradictions of social adaptation after the inmates are released from prisons. The Ministry of Justice , therefore, takes a course of action to increase the tasks outside of prisons s uch as volunteer works.

Doing so, prisons need to be located to urban areas all the more.

Supposing all inmates will eventually return to the society.

If they are isolated from the society, they will be grown to be people who will adapt only to that specific place, and this may lead to them repeating crimes af ter they return to the society.

In view of prevention of repeat convictions, prisons cannot help but to locate t hemselves in urban areas.

The prison escape by Li Guolin proves that it was bound to happen, setting aside that this inmate had had a history of escape before.

In America, they face inmates with a view that human nature is fundamentally evi l, but Japan's view is that human nature is fundamentally good. But this is not the reason why the inmate managed to escape.

The prison's overcrowding issue has long been pointed out.

It is not an easy task observing ever-increasing inmates with a limited number o f prison guards.

Additionally, there is a strong pressure of budgetary cutback.

The Ministry of Justice has already taken a measure.

2000

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PFI

The housing rate of inmates had hit 110% in the middle of year 2000, but it has now been reduced to less than 100% after some extensions of inmates' accomodatio

n buildings at all prisons, operation of newly built PFI prisons (private prison s), and also the improvement in the housing rate due to the decrease in total nu mber of inmates in recent years.

However, this is just an average standard.

Facilities for convicts who are serving long-term sentences and female inmates a re continually having an overcrowding issue.

Additionally, the Hiroshima Penitentiary is known to have a wide range of housin g ranks. This means they require many different types of prison guard resources.

It is not just a problem of the number of people.

The citizen judge system began in Japan, and the once-unknown world of criminal justice is gradually made clear.

Logically concluding the escape incident as a problem of the prison's monitoring system is nothing but just a recognition before the citizen judge system came i n effect.

The general public need to discuss constructively about the opinions on the over crowding problem of the inmates who are waiting to return to the society and als o on how this problem shall be dealt with.

Also, expansion of the traditional non-housing punishment and the early release system shall be considered further. These, of course, depend on the budgets. Cri minal cases should no longer be consumed just as news stories.

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